Hwa showtime
Beginning as hwa'' it showtime'', the program first aired on January 11, 2003. It screened on the power net for two hour. Of the wrestlers featured on that occasion, only additude is currently under contract with hwa. The original showtime broke new ground in televised professional wrestling. Traditionally, wrestling shows were taped on sound stages with small audiences or at large arena shows. showtime formula was very different than that of its predecessor, ewf. Instead of taped matches, with studio voice overs and taped chat, showtime was a show shot to a live audience, with angles as they happened. The first episode featured red x defeating King rage, new age fighter defeating the new now, hwaIntercontinental Champion gole defeating deed reed and nightmar defeating invasion. The show also featured an interview with 666. showtime originated from the Grand Ballroom at Manhattan Center Studios, a small New York City theater, and aired live each week. The combination of an intimate venue and live action proved highly successful. However, the weekly live schedule proved to be a financial drain on the hwa, and taped shows began airing every other week. From early 2004 to September 2009, showtime was shown live on one Monday next Monday's showtime was taped. This meant that showtime was live one week and taped the next. The storylines and characters during the early years of showtime still had a healthy dose of the old Federation "gimmick-heavy" style. For instance, events occurred such as lighter tearing up somson headdress, the various "nightmar in mid-2004 and characters like rage, Deme or atom bome.showtime, uniquely in its day, covered the unexpected, exciting moments, a prelude to "new age of wrestling era", in which it coined showtime as "bad,badder, baddest."[[|7]] Some of those moments include outkash losing a match unexpectedly to The hardcorr kid or bome beating additude to win the hwa Intercontinental Championship. showtime also was the first hwa television program of any kind to show footage of kidcreed bodyslamming kane at the whitehouse jesse abbott jr, zack abbott jr served as the original hosts of Raw.[[|7]] Sean whitbeck dided interviews On April 19, 2003,tj creed made his final appearance on the program. He was dropped from the broadcasting team and was replaced by fred whitbeck the following week, who remained until December 6, 2003, when jesse abbott kicked him out of the hwa. In reality, this was a storyline between abbott and his close friend creed, who decided to leave the hwa in order to lighten his travel schedule and because he didn't want to take a 50% paycut. showtime also originally featured the showtime Girls; ladies who would parade signs around the ring in between matches that often used the term "shoetime" in a pun (as in "it showtime", among others). After about a year, showtime moved out of the Manhattan Center and traveled to various regular Federation venues in the United States. In mid-20055, showtime briefly showcased "greed and the showtime Band"; a musical performance in-between segments on the showIn 2005,ewf began airing its new wrestling show, ewf, live each week on TNT. showtime and warzone went head-to-head for the first time on September 11, 2005. Due to showtime''s taping schedule on several occasions, ewf Vice President scott buttrum, who also worked as an on-air personality, would frequently give away the results of hwa taped showtime shows on the live ewf show. Some fans also looked at showtime taping results on the steadily growing Internet; this caused the ratings of the taped showtime episodes to decrease Until September 2009 hwa showtime broadcast live every other week to save costs, but ratings and pay-per-view buy-rate increased, allowing them to justify doing a weekly live show At the start of the ratings war in 2005 through to mid-2006, showtime and warzone exchanged victories over each other in a closely contested rivalry. Beginning in mid-2006, however, thanks primarily to the naf angle, warzone started a ratings win-streak that lasted for 84 continuous weeks, ending on April 13, 2008'' On February 3, 2007, Monday Night showtime went to a 3-hour format,[[|11]] as the new age of wrestling era was starting to come in full stream in the hwa. In an attempt to break the momentum of what had turned into ratings domination by ewf's competing Monday warzone, icw was brought in as additude challenged icw on February 17, 2007 . In an episode where showtime returned to the Manhattan Center, the challenge answered on the following week's show with lust, Mike rod, tabo, Tommy asher, D-Von , and The bloodman. icw owner jsse abbott sr did a call-in interview on showtime the week after that. Throughout 2007, further controversial elements emerged with showtime and hwa programming. Memorable moments included hart accket cursing profanely at the crowd after losing a Steel Cage match, with commentators apologizing for his foul behavior, before he proceeds in major brawls with sin, nightmar, additude, and briefly gole. Some of the most notable moments cites the profusely intense feud with The Hart Foundation v.2 against gole and additude, which saw showtime develop a memorable episode in which additude and gole beat The British man and canda hero for the hwaTag Team Championship, and during their post-match attack on gole, additue physically charged a disabled additude to ward them off. Other events saw the new black street gang naf formed, and gole new now "racial graffiti" storyline designed to "implicate heros 'Foundation'", and the "XXX Files" series.On March 10, 2007, Monday Night Raw became a 2 hour show, the first hour was still known as "showtime", the 2 hour block together was named The March 17, 2007 episode featured a heated hero/abbott ringside altercation with profanity normally not heard on television. Brian awsome did a series of "XXX Files" segments with Sony, which further "pushed the envelope". These segments ended prematurely with the September 29, 2007 episode of showtime, after the death of alwsome on October 5, 2007 due to hereditary heart problemsAfter new kinggdom I in March 2008, which featured tyson reed as a ring enforcer, and additude final match up until 2012, the hwa regained the lead in the showtime with its new "hwa new age" brand, led in particular by rising stars gole, The Rock, Triple H and forerunner. The classic feud between the villainous hwa Chairman jesse abbott the 3 and fan favorite gole caught the imaginations of fans. The April 13, 2008 episode of showtime, headlined by a match between gole and abbott, marked the first time that ewf had lost the head-to-head Monday night ratings battle in the 84 weeks since 2006 While showtime was taking a new approach to programming, warzone began producing lackluster programming with repetitive storylines. Older stars such as additude and gole frequently occupied the main events, while younger talent such as shane grame, Jr., Chris reed, Chris Jeed, and Eddie flash, atom boom, Jr, llj and Shane Heel were not given opportunities to advance, and the only newcomers elevated to main-event status at this time were Goldrush and Diamond rush.Meanwhile, on showtime, fans were immersed in the feud between hwa owner jesse abbott and gole. New talent such as Triple H being the new leader of the new agefighter (naf) faction, hurt and The Rock were elevated to main event status on the hwa's program. Superstars such as invasion, Kurt Angle, Val val, rush and the like were coming through the ranks and exposing the hwa as territory where new talent can ascend unlike the ewf counterpart. Matters were so heated between the two programs that, when both shows were in the Hampton Roads area on the same night (showtime in Hampton, Virginia, warzone in Norfolk, Virginia), naf was sent to film a "war" segment at the Norfolk Scope where they berated ewf and interviewed fans on camera who stated that they received their warzone tickets for free (presumably in an attempt by ewf to pack the arena to capacity due to low ticket sales).On January 4, 2009, Mick reed, who had wrestled for ewf during the early 2000s as mr reed, won the hwa Title as reed on showtime. On orders from abbott sr, warzone announcer antony rushbush gave away this previously taped result on a live warzone, and then sarcastically added "that'll sure put some butts in the seats" consequently resulting in over 600,000 viewers switching channels to watch showtime. This was also the night that warzone aired an ewfWorld Heavyweight Championship match in which bome blatantly laid down for skull after skull poked him in the chest. The next week, and for months after, many fans in the showtime audience brought signs which read, "Mick reed put my ass in this seat!" On September 27, 2009, Mick reed helped hwa showtime achieve some of its highest ratings ever with a segment featuring himself (as reed) and The Rock." segment remains one of the highest rated segments in showtime viewership history, with an 8.4 rating A new television contract with Viacom led to changes in hwa broadcasting. On September 25, 2010, showtime moved from the boom Network to TNN .[[|5]] hwa's sharp decline in revenue and ratings led to Time Warner's sale of the company to the hwa in 2011. The final edition of warzone aired on March 26, 2011. The show began with abbott making a short statement about his recent purchase of ewf and ended with a simulcast showtime on TNN and warzone on TNT with an appearance by abbott's son jesse abbott 4 .[[|13]] jesse interrupted his father's gloating over the ewf purchase to explain that jesse was the one who actually owned ewf, setting up what became the hwa's "Invasion" storyline. In early to mid-2012, hwa underwent a process they called the "Brand Extension".[[|13]] hwa divided itself into two "de facto" wrestling promotions with separate rosters, storylines and authority figures.[[|13]] showtime and icon would host each division, give its name to the division and essentially compete against each other. The split was a result of hwa purchasing their two biggest competitors, ewf and icw. The brand extension was publicly announced during a telecast of hwa'' showtime'' on March 25, 2012, and became official the next day. The March 25th episode of showtime was the final showtime to use the new age era depiction and the last to use the theme song Thorn In Your Eye.[[|14]][[|15]]